The Only
by Zandoz
Summary: A Maleficent fan fiction, giving the behind the scenes of the fairy's story, her childhood with Stefan, and her missing parents. What, exactly, is Maleficent? She neither one type of fairy, nor the other: She is the Only. Only later on does she discover she is not alone.


The Only

A Maleficent Fan Fiction

Shana O'Quinn

Part 1

1

She was the only. The only one in the Moors that was human-sized, with beautiful wings like a gigantic hawk. The only one in the forest with gracefully curved horns and eyes that shone warmly when happy and sparked when upset. She had been without her parents for what seemed like a very long time, but she had never been alone: the magical inhabitants of the Moors took care of each other and helped one another. They had not forgotten the Old Ways, and so they needed not any king or queen or chieftain.

This girl, for so she appeared a girl of ten despite her wings and horns and pointed ears, learned magic and making and practiced flying ever higher, seeking to reach beyond the clouds. Alas, she was not strong enough for that yet but she loved trying, her wings flapping against the force that tugged at all things, then diving down, down, down, sometimes skimming the Naiad's pond or the tops of the ancient trees.

The memory of her parents had receded as the years passed, until there were only hazy fragments that she had to struggle to recall. She felt strange and sentimental as she grasped at the visions; her mother with her flashing eyes and horns smiling at her, her sharp white teeth glistening in the sunlight, and her father with his wondrous golden wings and pointed ears. She saw him embrace her mother lovingly, and she kissed his cheek in turn. She had bits of another day in her mind's eye, of her mother dancing with her beside the stream that fed the Pond, her black hair whipping around them when she twirled Maleficent, for that was the girl-creature's name, around and around. Her mother had no wings but she was gorgeous and perfect in her daughter's eyes and she was made of magic, she WAS magic.

Her father joyfully taught her to use her wings, though unlike his bright pinions hers were deep brown as a bird of prey. She vaguely remembered his instructions on how to use the headwinds and air currents to keep herself aloft, and his advice to her to always keep her heart open, even when it hurts, for the heart is what matters. She didn't understand what he meant, but then she thought about the human boy she had met recently, Stefan. From what she had gotten from him, he had had a tough life, fraught with loneliness, hunger, and uncertainty.

How lucky she had been, Maleficent thought, to have the Pixies and the Treemen and the other denizens of the Moors to look after her, to care for her! Stefan had been hardened by his troubles, but he had thrown away his iron ring, the only trinket he owned, so it wouldn't harm his new friend. The fairy smiled and was glad to be a part of his support, his security, that had been denied to him since losing his parents to the coughing sickness.

Her own parents had died because of their love for one another. They were from two different tribes of fairy, which long ago had agreed to not fight each other and to not have any dealings with one another. Humans had labels for them, some later referring to them as the Seelie and Unseelie court, or the Trooping and Solitary fairies. Some confused, garbled tales labeled them Angels and Demons, though they were creatures of the Earth, and bled and died as other living things do. Maleficent's mother was a Solitary, wingless, powerful in magic, and her father was a Trooping Fairy, winged, and radiant as the Sun. Their respective families came to collect them and 'rehabilitate' them to the error of their ways, and so they fled together, leaving Maleficent in the care of the Pixies until their return.

Sadly, that day never came. Some of the Naiads suspected that unfriendly humans, stirred up by the strife of the fairies, killed them out of fear.

Maleficent shook her head to dispel these sad thoughts and was just about to spread her wings and take flight when she heard Stefan call her. She flew toward the sound of his voice, on the border of the human kingdom and the Moors, and tackled him playfully. He cried out then laughed when he realized it was her, and put his thin arms around her in a quick hug. "There you are!" he exclaimed when he had finished laughing. "You play rough for a girl."

"I'm not a girrrrl," she teased him. "I'm a fairy."

"Well then, a fairy girl," Stefan amended. He secretly admired her thick dark hair and unusual eyes.

They ended up climbing the rocky hillside to the top of Mist Hill. Maleficent had an unfair advantage, so she made the trek with Stefan. Once they reached the top the looked out and enjoyed the view. Stefan's breath caught in his throat as he took in the vast expanse of the land stretching out before them. The border of the Moors and the Kingdom was hung with fog, and beyond that lay the hill-castle which was the capital of the human kingdom. "I uh, I stopped being a thief," the boy said.

"That's good," she said to that. "You don't have to steal anymore. I'll give you anything you need."

"I know you would," he smiled shyly at her. "But I wouldn't feel right. I got a job as a page to Lord Varn, who attends the King."

"So no more living in the barn or stealing. That's wonderful!"

"I'm staying in the servant's quarters of the castle," he went on.

"You'll still come visit me, won't you?" she asked, worried.

"Oh, yes! As often as I can when I'm not learning or doing my chores," he answered.

2

Two years later, Stefan became the assistant to the chief scribe to the King, where he learned to read and write and make the curmudgeonly old man's tea. However, the scribe bestowed upon the growing boy many books, which he excitedly brought to show his oldest friend, Maleficent.

"This is so strange," she said, handling the object with awe. She opened it and gazed at the hand-copied script and carefully inked artwork. "It's beautiful, Stefan. You say these markings tell you things?"

"That's right. With these written words, others can read what you put down many years later."

"How brilliant!" she exclaimed, then her face lit up in her dazzling smile. "Will you teach me?"

"Sure," he answered, his blue eyes shining his happiness. "I'll have to teach you the alphabet first."

The next time he visited her, tome in hand, she began learning these marks in earnest. They sat on an old log poring over the letters. Late that evening, her mind wandering (and wondering), she blurted out, "Is it true that humans grow old and die after only a few tens of years? Is that why you write and create these wondrous things, so that some part of you lives on?"

"I...well, the Chief Scribe is over seventy years old. That's really old," Stefan said after a moment. He'd never thought that human lives were so short; reaching the age of seventy to his young mind was quite like living forever. "Why? Do none of your kind grow old and die?"

"We die, we can be hurt or get sick, but we don't get old. We live for many lifespans of man, and when we get tired we just die."

Stefan looked at her in surprise and a little fear-in his mind he had classified her as a girl and playmate, albeit a strange one with wings. Hearing her say this brought home the vast difference in their species and somehow made him sad. "Maleficent, are there any others like you? Fairies?"

"I don't know," she replied sorrowfully. "My parents were from two different kinds of fairy. Sometimes I think I'm the only one left." She leaned her horned head on his shoulder.

He put an arm around her shoulders to comfort her. "I'm sorry to make you feel bad. Hey, how about I let you keep this book? It's all about fairies and trolls and other legends."

She snickered at that. "I am not a legend, I am very much real. Thank you, though," she spoke gratefully. "I shall treasure it always. I'll hopefully be able to read it soon."

"You're an excellent pupil," the boy chuckled.

Maleficent did indeed learn the humans' writing and enjoyed the gorgeously decorated and illustrated book, which had her mother and her father's people listed in it, though they got a few things wrong. She could barely remember her parents, but she knew that neither were tricksters or prone to steal babies, which the text claimed. Her mother's pale-skinned, horned people were classified as dangerous and her father's people considered unapproachable and perilous to cross. They did get some things right such as the divide between the tribes, but she so loved turning the pages in the old book anyway.

She was the only one in the Moors who knew how to read and write. She was the only one to befriend an orphaned farm boy and to look after him.

The inhabitants of the forest grew troubled as humans expanded their territory, building houses, shops and villages where forest and wild lands used to be. Wood sprites and dryads were forced out of their homes, unable to bear the noise and bustle of so many humans. She told Stefan of her concerns, to which he said that one day he would be king in that great castle, and he would decree no more encroaching into the magical creatures' lands.

Maleficent laughed at such silly talk; him, king? She respected his ambition and his good intentions, but she could hardly believe such talk. She did hope that if he did gain any power in the human kingdom that he would use it to help the people of the Moors.

She found it harder and harder to watch Stefan leave when it was time to go, watching his gangly frame as his back receded into the distance, watching him make his way along the main road leading to the castle. The old Pixies noticed this one evening after the boy left, that Maleficent heaved a big sigh and made to fly up to her favorite tree to sleep.

"Goodness, child, what a sound you make," the self-appointed leader, Knotgrass, clucked. Maleficent folded her wings and frowned.

"I think she likes him," the thin pixie in blue, known as Flittle, said.

"Oh pffft, she loves that homely boy," Thistlewit, the youngest, giggled.

"He's not homely," protested the fairy. "I'm not in love. I don't think." She flew off in a huff to nestle herself in her tree.

"I think it's good for them both," Flittle said to nobody in particular. "They being with no parents and all."

"I don't deny they've been good for each other, but just think about it!" declared Knotgrass as she flew up to where Maleficent was reclining with her arms crossed. "Getting too close may not be a good idea. What if you want to get married? It would never work!"

"Who said anything about getting married?" grumped Maleficent.

"You'd outlive him many times over," Thistlewit reminded her, and shook her head of blonde curls. "What sort of children would you have, if any? We just don't want you to get hurt."

"I know, but I don't see what everyone is so afraid of. Yes, he's human, but he's good. He loves the Moors. Why else would be have been thrown together?"

Knotgrass floated with her mouth open a moment, then closed it. Neither pixie had any rebuttal to that.

Maleficent drifted off to sleep sometime later, and dreamed strange dreams. She was confronted with a male solitary fairy her own age, with lovely green eyes and curved horns similar to her own. He was slender and wingless and appeared close to her own age. He smiled at her, showing a mouthful of sharp teeth. He was dressed in a loose, flowing tunic and trousers and tightly laced boots and beckoned to her. She wanted to take his hand but she was afraid and she didn't know why.

The dream shifted, and she saw a blonde young woman, with rosy cheeks and cherub face, smiling happily. She was clad in a finely made blue overdress and she was important somehow, Maleficent thought to herself. She then saw a stern, chiseled face of a king, for he wore a crown. He had a short, trimmed beard and wore such a haunted, dead look in his face and eyes she could barely look at him. Such pain and hatred and fear she had never witnessed before.

She awoke sitting straight up on the branch she'd been sleeping in, gasping for breath. Dawn had just broken, bathing the cool morning air with its slowly increasing warmth. What did the strange visions mean? Who were the people in her dream?

3

Four more years passed, and the friends grew up. Stefan visited less often as his duties expanded; he learned about the Kingdom's history and its laws, so as the Chief Scribe grew more feeble, Stefan stepped in to interpret the old writings and to speak direct to King Henry. He also learned basic swordfighting and tactics from the powerful Lord Varn, who still saw something in the ambitious lad. However, there would be no work on the day of the great Spring Festival-the castle and the surrounding area would be celebrating all day and night with feasting and giving thanks for another peaceful, productive year.

"Maleficent!" the adolescent boy called. "I have all day and evening with no duties." He waited at the border of the human territory and the beginning of the Moors, where he normally came to ask leave to enter as he always respectfully did. He was dressed in his finest tunic and cloak, his black hair freshly cropped to his widening shoulders. His youthful face beamed when he spotted her.

Within a few moments, she appeared, her powerful wing-flaps sending a burst of wind his way as she gracefully landed. She folded them tightly to her back, and the longest pinfeathers dragged the ground as she walked toward him. Her dark brown hair reached her waist now, and she had tied part it back in a ponytail. She wore a simple cotton underdress and a brown satin overdress yet she needed no other adornment. Her horns, wings and red lips were decoration enough. She was primal and beautiful all at once.

"I see you're moving up," she teased him. She nodded her head toward the chestnut mare he rode there, who shied at the strange smell of the fairy.

"Yes, I am. I'm helping people, too. Land disputes, people falsely or unfairly accused of crimes, finding orphans homes," he gushed, then paused. "But that's not why I came. I'm here to see you, Maleficent. I brought you more books to read, too."

"It's too nice a day to just sit around reading," she declared. Let's go swimming in the Pond!"

They did so, and then Stefan talked her into getting on the mare and learning to ride. The mare was nervous at first but settled down at the fairy's gentle voice. Maleficent found the experience exhilarating, and in return she threaded her arms around his middle and flew him up to the top of Mist Hill. He loved the wind in his face and the land below rushing under his feet. When they landed, the fairy gasped. "You are getting almost too heavy for me!" she laughed breathlessly.

"What, you? It can't be so," he joked. "You could carry the horse if you wanted."

"I appreciate your confidence, but I do have my limits." Evening was drawing on and they watched the sun sink lower in the sky. Hand in hand they drank in the sight and the feel of the cooling evening air.

"It's beautiful," Stefan whispered. "And so are you."

She turned to him, her bright fairy eyes holding his blue ones. She was unsure what to do next and just stood motionless while he leaned forward. He put his lips softly to hers, which caused her heart to leap into her throat. After a moment she returned the kiss. What seemed like weeks passed by, leaving them both weak in the knees when their lips finally parted. They found their arms wrapped around one another, and could feel each other's heartbeat. Maleficent touched her fingers to her lips. "That was wonderful. What was that?" she wondered.

"It is true love's first kiss," he smiled at her, then kissed her again. She positively glowed with warmth, with each feather in her enormous wings shimmering. She radiated such happiness that it made both their heart's soar.

Maleficent had never been so happy in all her young life, and even after he left late that night she sat in her tree grinning and sighing in her joy. The Pixies shook their curly haired heads in worry, and the Treants (or Treemen, as humans called them) grumbled uneasily.

The next few months were blissful for the young lovers, with Stefan slipping away whenever he could to spend time with Maleficent. She amazed him with her growing powers, healing animals and mending branches on trees with just a touch. The Moors flourished, the trees and plants bursting with life and color, and the magical denizens couldn't help but reflect her joy.

However, one day when Stefan awoke in his modest room in the castle, he found the whole place abuzz with a commotion. The Chief Scribe had passed away in the night, and on top of that, angry dryads and wood sprites had attacked a settlement of humans on the outskirts of the Kingdom. Stefan soon had his hands full copying decrees by the King and finding employment and places to live for the survivors who were displaced.

His visits to the Moors became increasingly seldom, until he came no more to call upon his childhood friend. Maleficent was hurt as the days became weeks and then months and there was nothing, not even a message, from Stefan. She gathered news from passing treants and goblins and learned that Stefan had become an important courtier and administrator in the castle, even though only recently having reached legal adulthood.

"We tried to tell you," Knotgrass said, but this time with true regret. "It just wouldn't have worked."

"Perhaps it's for the best," Thistlewit put in.

"How sad," spoke Flittle. "Still, you'll always have the memories of the good times."

Maleficent snorted derisively. What good were pleasant memories when it only hurt and stung?

Over the next several years she threw herself into helping and protecting the inhabitants of the Moors and the nearby forests. She reached her full height of just under six feet but her abilities continued to grow. She didn't want harm to come to humans, for all her pain she knew that there was good in them. She tried speaking to farmers and knights alike, but she received mostly fear and anger.

Stefan was poring through documents coming in from the provinces when a messenger arrived with important news. Lord Varn, his first guardian, had been killed by Treemen in a skirmish. It was like losing his father all over again, and all the color leached from his face.

King Henry was livid, as Varn was one of his most trusted knights and advisors. He immediately began preparation for an assault and siege upon the Moors, despite Stefan's concerns that more innocent people would die. All the prosperous Kingdom's resources and soldiers were mustered to form a tremendous attack force.

Stefan was left at the castle to help run things while the King was away. The Lord Chancellor held the official power, but many people had come to trust Stefan. So he waited and worried and pondered. It was late in the evening when the army returned to the castle, decimated, frightened, and with the wounded King Henry in tow.

The young man looked upon the broken body of the last father figure he could claim and came to the realization: peace was not an option. His affection for Maleficent would not stem the tide carrying all of them inexorably along. The creatures of the Moors will have to flee far away, or die.

Stefan went to check on the status of the King and found his only child, the Princess, sitting beside him on the bed sobbing. Her long blond hair had been hastily tied back, and the young man noticed she had rolled the sleeves up of her pink gown to help feed her father and give him drink. "Excuse me, Princess Laila," he hailed her when he entered the royal bedchamber.

"It's all right, Sir Stefan. He's holding on for the time being."

"I'll get the royal physicians, you shouldn't have to tax yourself-"

"He's my father. It's my duty to stay with him."

Stefan gazed at her when she turned back to her father and thought about the King's decree: whoever killed Maleficent and avenged him would be King after him, and marry the Princess. He could make all the problems go away, by getting rid of Maleficent. He still remembered the days they spent together fondly; could he prepare himself to do what must be done? He would have everything he ever wanted, everything he had worked so hard toward.

He visited the apothecary shop and inquired about potions-what sort of potion would be needed to render a fairy as wily and powerful as Maleficent vulnerable? The absent-minded apothecary shook his head and went to the back of his shop to consult some dusty books. Stefan could discern him talking to somebody else in the back, someone older. When he returned, he had an old scroll in hand, a mortar and pestle, some glass vials, and other ingredients. "This should do it," he said as he pounded herbs with the mortar and pestle.

"Will it put her out?"

"Aye, even one of the Fair Folk as strong as she," the strange little man nodded his head as he worked.

"Now she can't know she's been drugged until it's too late."

"Hmm...I can make it concentrated, add some things to cover the taste, and you could eh...put it in some water or wine or something," the apothecary suggested.

"Good. Very good," Stefan said.

He gathered a big leather hide, some iron tools, his dagger, and a canteen of water which he poured the vial of potion into, and ordered a horse and cart be made ready. Late that evening, he parked the cart, left the horse to graze, and threaded his way along the path on foot. "Maleficent!" he called, both anxious and filled with hope. "Maleficent!"

After a minute, the whoosh of feathered wings announced her arrival. "So. How are things in the world of Men?"

He saw she had grown into the fullness of her body and powers, and he had to swallow his throat. She was so beautiful and troubled. The young man explained to her that King Henry wanted her dead, and would be sending out whomever he could to do the deed. They walked together, beside the gurgling stream on the kingdom side of the divide, and it was like all the years rolled away and they were both sixteen again. Stefan took her hand and she grasped its familiar warmth, was so happy when before she was worried and uneasy. They talked and talked and held each other and looked up at the stars in the night sky and were content.

Stefan found himself memorizing every part of her, her pointed ears, her wings, her slender hands, for he knew what he was about to do. He suggested that she run away, at least for a while, and he could lie and say she was gone forever and would be King. Then he could put an end to the destructive war between the Fair Folk of the Moors and human Kingdom, and she could come back and live as before.

"I would do no such thing," she laughed at him. "There's too many holes in that plan. Who would protect the Moors while I'm away? Also, where would I go? I have never been away from these lands. What friends do I have? What assurance do I have that things would be as they were before?"

"You must trust me, Maleficent. I hurt you by staying away and I see I am a fool for doing so." Stefan saw she was unwilling to entertain such a ploy-unlike the women at Court, she was sharp, proud-willed and unyielding. He knew what he must do. He offered her a drink from his water bottle, and she drank it thirstily.

It did what it was supposed to do, and she was soon completely immobile and in a deep, deep sleep.

Stefan raised his iron dagger high above his head, ready to plunge it into the fairy's back. He couldn't. He couldn't do it. He still cared for her, and what's more, as far as they both knew, she was the only one. She was the only. Her beauty and strength would be gone forever. Could he live with that? Could he live with himself?

He stroked the soft brown feathers of her wings and made a decision.

4

Maleficent drifted along in sweet darkness, until sharp pain jabbed at her. It grew more insistent, until her consciousness slowly fought until it reached the surface, then her eyes flew open. Something was wrong with her back, where was she, no there was something wrong with her wings.

They were gone.

HER WINGS WERE GONE.

She cried out in abject horror, pain, and betrayal. She shook all over, shook with the shock and anger and despair, her thin frame now appearing frail without the majestic bulk of her wings. How could he do this? How could he do this to her, the only one who loved him? She screamed and screamed, her anguish bouncing all over the countryside.

Stefan heard as he drove the cart bearing her wings toward the castle. It chilled him to his very core. He thought he was being merciful, having intended to take her life he took something just as precious. It was who she was, it defined her, it was such a part of her. He hoped she lived and maybe fled somewhere far away, and he would never have to think of her again.

Maleficent pulled herself to her feet and winced; her shoulders, back and arms ached from the physical trauma, but her heart...it was broken. Shattered. She had been betrayed so horrifically, so completely, having been stripped of her very being. What good is a flying fairy without wings? She felt her magic increase, oddly enough. She tried willing new wings to grow from her back, but that, she found, was impossible. The fairy made a staff from a piece of wood from the campfire of the night before and leaned heavily on it as she made her way back to the heart of the Moors. She wondered at the continued growing of her magic, but she had forgotten that the wingless ones of the Unseelie Court like her mother had the greater power. Having lost her wings, her body was compensating, though she couldn't change her wounded form.

She paused when she got halfway across the plains that was the buffer between the Moors and the Kingdom. She was stiff and hollow. Her whole upper body ached, yet it was nothing compared to the wound in her heart. She should've listened to those silly Pixies-this particular time, they knew what they were about. She leaned against a crumbling stone wall to rest. Her feet were sore, as she was unused to having to walk long distances. A lone crow flew by, and landed on a rock to study the lone fairy leaning on her staff. He wondered what had happened to her, until hunger drove him on to look for something to eat.

Not many hours later, the crow found himself caught in a farmer's net trying to eat the peasant's meager crops. The farmer's dog barked incessantly, adding to the bird's distress. He squawked and flopped under the net but was unable to get free. The farmer raised a big club to dash the crow's brains out when the bird suddenly underwent a change. The crow grew, and grew, his flesh tingled and his bones stretched, until he stood up as a man and pulled the hated net off of him.

The peasant beat a hasty retreat followed by the dog, who yelped and turned tail. The once-bird looked down at what used to be gorgeous, shiny black feathers to find two clammy, meaty hands. Then he spotted the fairy he saw earlier approaching him, moving with some pain but with regal grace. It had to be her that changed him! "What have you do to my beautiful self?" he demanded, and a human voice and human speech emanated from him.

The fairy reminded him he could've been left to be beaten to death.

"Forgive me. For saving my life, I am your servant."

"What am I to call you?" the wingless fairy asked.

He replied that his name was Diaval. The once-bird inquired what need did she have of him.

"Wings. I need you to be my wings."

"What are you named?" he asked.

She gazed at him with those piercing eyes, which made Diaval suddenly afraid. "I am Maleficent. The only one of my kind that now walks. My days shall be spent seeking vengeance. There is one called Stefan who stole my wings, and a dying king I would have news of. Go now, Diaval. Go to the human castle, and tell me what you see."

In an instant he was back in his familiar crow form. He flapped his wings and was soon high in the sky making his way toward the big stone human structure that they referred to as a castle. He alighted on a high windowsill where there seemed to be much commotion. From the bits of conversation he picked up, the old king had died and a new one was being crowned. He watched as a shiny thing was placed on a severe-looking, dark-haired man's head and he took his seat beside a velvet and satin clad, yellow-haired woman, who looked pained and sad. He heard the announcement that here now was King Stefan, first of his line.

"Long live the King!" the crowd chanted.

Diaval cawed in disgust and took flight.

Maleficent pieced together what had occurred: Stefan, failing to persuade her to fall in with his schemes and unable to outright kill her, had stripped her of her wings so that he would receive a crown and a simpering blonde princess as his bride.

We shall see about that, she vowed. We shall see.

Maleficent, with the aid of her friend Balthazar and the other Treants, consolidated her position as Queen of the Moors. It was ever more forboding to humans and fog clung to the flora, obscuring what could be hiding in the shadows, waiting to pounce. The Boglings, the happy-go-lucky froglike creatures of the marsh, no longer played and frolicked in the water, but waited on the orders of Maleficent, as did the rest of the Fair Folk.

The Pixies observed with growing dread and anxiety as relations between the neighbors, the humans and the Fair Folk, deteriorated. They didn't yet know what could be done, so they waited, and watched.

Diaval never had to worry about going hungry or being captured by humans, but he spent his days roaming far and wide gathering news for his mistress. She had healed from having her wings torn from her, at least in body. He sometimes caught glimpses of the lighthearted, carefree fairy she once was, but the rest of the time she was somber and grieving. Her heart became empty, then began to fill with hate.

He protested when she concocted traps to send a message to the humans on the Borders between the neighbors, and he shook his feathered head at her when she sent different tribes of Fair Folk to harry and harass villagers and farmers. The crow noticed some sort of goings-on in the castle, nearly a year after Maleficent lost her wings and saved him from death, so he swooped close to see. He perched on a clothesline to pick up what the laundresses were gossiping about.

A baby. It seems the King and Queen were proud parents to a baby girl. Maleficent was silent and still as a post when he delivered the news to her. She gripped her staff tightly and gritted her teeth. She announced that she would very much love to attend the grand celebration for the royal baby. She put aside her earthy fairy colors and swathed herself all in black, black to reflect the evil that had been done upon her, black to demonstrate the darkness that now grew inside her soul. She covered her lovely brown hair in a headdress, her horns making a mockery of the exaggerated headdresses that noblewomen and princesses wore. Her flowing robes trailed after her when she walked, creating an effect of mass and gravitas to replace the effect her wings once gave.

So she went forth to the castle, the first time she had the audacity to do so.

The Pixies had arrived before she had, in an attempt to bring a measure of peace between the Moors and the Kingdom and to foster goodwill, they offered to bestow magical gifts upon the baby: she would grow in beauty, all who meet her would come to love her, and she would always be happy. How disappointing, Maleficent thought, to have the rabble rebelling in such a way.

The tall, wingless fairy made her way through the crowd and they parted, pressing against one another and whispering amongst themselves. Maleficent paid them no mind, but strutted slowly to the monarchs sitting on their thrones with her head held high. She noticed Queen Laila leaning forward in her seat, nervously wringing her hands. What a complacent fool, just a pawn in the games all these men play, thought Maleficent. Rosy cheeks, round face, and blue eyes that regarded her in a mixture of curiosity and horror, yet the fairy couldn't find any hate for her. Disdain, and perhaps even pity, but no hatred.

It seems the hatred she bore was reserved for the man who was glaring at her. Stefan. The treacherous, greedy fool who set in motion deeds that neither of them could foresee.

Diaval watched in fascination and sorrow as Maleficent made the king grovel, made him beg in front of al his servants and courtiers for his daughter to not be cursed with a death-sleep on her sixteenth birthday. The fairy laughed and cursed her anyway, with the stipulation that the spell could only be broken by true love's kiss. She then fatefully added that no force on earth could break the spell.

The Queen buried her face in her hands and wept as the King blinked stupidly, the full import of what had just happened having not completely sunk in. Laila glared at her not so beloved husband; she wasn't stupid. She saw the looks shared between the fairy and Stefan. It was looks of two who had been quite intimate with each other, whatever the present antagonism. "What are we to do now?" she demanded.

"What we must," was his short answer. He entrusted the Princess Aurora to the bungling Pixies in an attempt to throw Maleficent and her machinations. He thought being King and marrying the beautiful Princess was what he always wanted. After getting what he wanted he found it wasn't all that he had expected. Laila was respectful but cold and aloof, and he was reminded that he was an orphan peasant while she was a princess born into plenty.

They definitely didn't love each other.

This was not what he thought it would be.

He held Aurora in his arms one last time before handing the baby over to the care of the Pixies. The Queen spent two full days weeping, then afterward would barely even acknowledge her husband's presence. Maleficent's curse began its vicious work by first rendering Stefan alone in a castle full of obedient subjects.

It didn't take long for Diaval to discover the house the Pixies whisked Princess Aurora to. Curious and eager to watch her terrible curse unfold, Maleficent came forth in secret to observe the child she referred to as a "little beastie."

Diaval enjoyed watching the tiny Princess, and secretly watching over her. He was so relieved when a trick Maleficent played on the three Pixies nearly resulted in a three year old Aurora plunging to her death, and she used her natural magic to catch the child in some tree roots.

He watched sadly as Maleficent made huge thorns to grow along the edges of the territory of the Moors, effectively restricting humans from entering that land without leave. She gathered news of the depression and distrust that Stefan suffered, and that his wife the Queen never let him touch her again. This pleased the fairy to no end.

The crow knew that there was still something good in her, buried under the pain. For all her demands of him and changing him into the shape of all sorts of animals she always made sure he had something to eat and a soft place to sleep. She occasionally talked to him about her life, even going over fond memories she had of her and Stefan when they were younger. Yet she could make it rain all evening in the country home Thistlewit, Flittle and Knotgrass lived with Aurora and make flowers turn into garter snakes to frighten the child only to have her laugh.

The vengeful fairy had her attention turned to healing a lightning strike wound on a venerable old tree when a toddler's giggle brought her attention back to her surroundings. Whirling around she found four-year-old Aurora smiling up at her with that stupid grin on her pudgy face. The child wouldn't listen to admonitions to go away and demanded Maleficent to pick her up. "I don't even like children," she hissed, but picked the little girl up anyway.

Aurora giggled and grasped the funny horns that sprouted from the fairy's proud head, to find they were quite solid and unmovable. Then the child pulled at the raised collar of the fairy's black robe and looked right into Maleficent's face with her soft blue eyes. The little princess's golden hair shone warmly in the sun, her round head covered in those yellow curls. Noticing this, the fairy's expression softened, and when the active child wanted down she put her gently on her feet and watched as she wandered back to her familiar yard. Diaval cawed softly-he had been too scared at what Maleficent might do to the child to even breathe.

He then flew at Maleficent cawing excitedly as was his habit, to say, "Hah! I knew it! You're not so hard!" to which Maleficent would send a gust of air to push him away and frown at him.

5

A few days later found Maleficent perched in a tree daydreaming, when suddenly her eyes flew open. She felt a magical presence she had never encountered before in either the human kingdom or the Moors. She ordered Diaval to keep watch over the girl, then leaped lightly from the tree to the leaf-strewn ground. She grabbed her staff and began walking, making her way to whatever it was leaving such a loud magical signal. She reached a clearing to find a single, tall figure standing, facing away from her.

He turned to face her, and she saw he was one of the fairies of the Unseelie Court, her mother's kind. He had two horns that leapt up from his head such as she sported, and a sharply planed, youthful face crowned with two piercing green eyes. His wide mouth smiled, which demonstrated a row of sharp teeth framed by well-shaped ruddy lips. He was dressed in a loose wine-colored tunic and black trousers and boots, just as was in her dream long ago. His long black hair fell past his shoulders, shiny and soft like Diaval's feathers. "I dreamed of you," Maleficent spoke softly, as if she was afraid of eavesdroppers even though they were quite alone. "Many years ago I saw you as a boy."

"I walked with you in my dream," he responded to that. His voice was beautiful and rhythmic, rolling off his tongue easily. "But you had wings as those of a Trooping Fairy."

"They were stolen from me," answered Maleficent with obvious pain.

"Ah," he spoke as he approached her. He moved with unhurried, languid grace, but she took a step backward in reflex. "The tales that have gone round are true, then. A winged elf that's lost her wings. Quite a tragic tale, that."

"What of you?" Maleficent asked. She was quite intrigued at finding out that at least her mother's race had not all died out, but extremely wary. She knew how wild and fey they were supposed to be. "Where is your family?"

"My siblings are alive, last I heard," he smiled again, then began to circle her. She matched his movements, turning to keep her face to him. "They have spread to the far corners of the earth, but we are few. So, so few."

"What is your name?" she asked him directly.

"I am Gwion," he answered simply, to her surprise. "You are Maleficent."

She was taken aback. "You know me?"

"Of course," he replied, then stopped circling her. "You ooze magic like Solitaries do. Your wings kept you from your full potential, sad though their loss may be. There are fewer and fewer of our people. I have no mate. I only know of my sisters and by the old Laws I cannot mate them. Come with me, Maleficent. We shall live by no rules but our own, kill or be killed, living to the fullest."

Maleficent threw back her horned head and laughed for the first time in years; a full-bodied, throaty, sensuous laugh that left Gwion surprised this time. "I fall in what I thought was love only to have my heart ripped out and my wings sawed off my body, in an act of betrayal so complete that I live for nothing but the fulfillment of my hatred and my curse upon him and his family, and you want me to elope with you? So, we will run away to some no-man's-land, is that it? Are you mentally stunted, you fool?" She continued laughing for another good minute.

"I see you haven't lost your sense of humor," he remarked blackly. His bright green eyes flashed in annoyance. "I don't think you realize our plight: yours, mine, all the Fairy Courts. We are dying out, Maleficent. The world moves on, and it is not taking us with it. My brothers and sisters and I even agreed that should we find those of your father's kind, the Seelie Court, that we would make friends of them. I have been alone a hundred years, and I grow weary of it. Leave this petty revenge, and come away with me. Learn of the hunt and the kill, rich meat in your mouth and warm blood trickling down your throat. Learn to harness the fear of humans and to use your powers to the fullest. Then one day you shall teach our children how to level mountains, raze whole armies to the ground and bring true fear to the weak."

Maleficent cocked her head as she studied him in a decidedly nonhuman way. For a moment she was tempted to take his outstretched hand and run away, to have a companion that understood her and she owed no explanation to. "No, Gwion," she finally told him after several long, tense minutes. "Something tells me my fate lies here. Oh, revenge is part of it, of course, but I'm afraid I cannot leave these lands yet." She turned away, to head back to the Pixies' cottage, when she felt his strong, clawed hand on her upper arm pulling her back.

"I see YOU are the fool!" he cried, as his eyes sparked dangerously. "Tormenting some worthless human child and parading around like some dark figure when you know nothing of true fright! What is this ridiculous thing?" he snapped, and snatched the head-covering she wore right off her head. Rich dark brown locks fell to her slender waist, and the tips of dainty, pointed ears poked through the tresses. She glared at him, then shook herself free of his grip. "You are beautiful. Maddening.." he whispered. Maleficent felt the same of him though she wouldn't utter the words. Even in his anger he was all grace and shining beauty, a dangerous male animal wearing a humanoid form.

Maleficent was pulled to him, Gwion's arms threaded around her middle holding her fast. She felt his soft, perfect lips on her neck and felt him purring, deep in his chest. She brushed her own full, red lips against his ear, his rounded human-like ear, and with her strong white teeth bit the top of his ear clean off. He sprang backward, and instinctively grabbed at his wound.

She spat the ear right in his face, crimson staining her chin. She gathered herself up, stretched her nearly six foot frame as the wind whipped around her. "No man touches me without my leave. Not even you, dream lover. Follow me not, pretty one. I have much to do yet. Perhaps someday I will go forth from the Moors searching for you, but not now. Go back, Gwion, and reflect upon your presumptions." She turned, her long black gown trailing after her, and departed. The solitary fairy stared after her in shock while the piece of his ear still lay in his palm.

She was more powerful than he could have ever imagined, and he wanted her. He wanted her more than anything, more than the smiting of his enemies or the companionship of his siblings. He could wait, then, he thought. He retreated back the way he came, back to the North. He wanted her, but he would never forget this insult.

Diaval was happy to see her when she returned and demonstrated this by squawking and flapping. She waved her hand and he became a man. "Where did you go? What happened to your headdress?"

"I met a fairy, like me, but without wings," she replied.

"Like your mother's tribe?" Diaval asked excitedly. "That's great! There's more of you out there, then. Where is he? Where did he go?"

"I sent him back wherever he came from," she uttered the words like she was etching them in stone. "Maybe he'll learn some manners."

The black-haired man stared at her in disbelief. "You sent him away? I thought you had questions, I figured you'd be happy-"

"The oaf wanted me to run off with him like an imbecile and tore my beautiful covering off my head. If that's the way of Solitaries then no thank you."

Diaval rolled his dark eyes. "No, you'd rather torment an innocent girl."

"Let's not forget her not-so-innocent father. I have things to do, the least of which is falling for another male specimen. Besides that, I don't have to explain myself to you. Did anything happen while I was gone?"

"Not really, that one blue fairy figured out how to milk the goat while the other two attempted to plant some crops. Aurora's been playing in the yard."

"So the beastie hasn't gotten itself into some other mess, hm?" Maleficent climbed up into her favorite perch.

Diaval joined her. "Do you think he'll come back?"

"Who? Oh, Gwion the Boor? I doubt it. If he does, I'll have Balthazar see him off."

The crow wearing a man's shape shook his head. "You should give the Unseelie fairy a chance, even if he does have bad manners I think it would do you some good."

"Oh, shut up," she snapped, and changed him back into a crow. Diaval cawed peevishly, then settled onto a branch.

Time passed, during which Maleficent entertained herself with repelling whatever assault King Stefan sent against the enchanted thorns that protected the moors and spying upon the Princess and the three Pixies. The Queen became sick with grief and unhappiness, and on her deathbed she sent for Stefan, for she wanted to make peace with him.

Stefan refused to attend her, for he was deep in conversation with someone that nobody else could see. He dismissed the courtier, and sat there in his nightclothes, staring at the wooden display case where he had installed Maleficent's wings. He talked to them, or rather, imagined the whole fairy was standing before him speaking with him as they once did many years before.

Queen Laila died that night, but she was with her nurses and ladies at least. The Queen was yet another victim of the terrible curse Maleficent had wrought, though one could argue Stefan was as much a part of the foul deeds. He attended her funeral services, though he hardly acted as one who had just lost a spouse; he appeared distracted and focused on something else, which he was. He was considering how he would stop Maleficent and how sweet watching her die in pain would be. He thought of the daughter he hadn't seen since she was a month old and wondered how she was faring. She would be eight years old now, old enough to begin to learn fine embroidery and how to be a good hostess and run a household, though he doubted the idiot Pixies would know where to begin with that.

He would worry about educating and getting to know her once she survives her sixteenth birthday without being put into a deathlike sleep. In an argument with his best general he stabbed a table in anger, and he stared at the blade a few moments.

Iron. Iron was the fairy's weakness-he remembered when he took her hand when they first met his cheap iron ring burned her hand. He had flung it away, to be unhindered the next time he touched her. He would need iron, lots of it. He ordered the best ironmongers to be sent for and installed in the workshops of the castle.

6

Aurora grew into a beautiful young woman, lithe and active and nearly always bore a beaming, irresistible smile. Her aunties loved her, even though they were inept at being productive peasant women, which was how the Pixies presented themselves to the humans around them. She learned that their spats with each other were never serious and that they cared about one another though they'd never admit it. When her chores were finished, the girl loved to walk alone in the woods and enjoy the nature's beauty and peace.

She was never truly alone, though she had never brought up her feelings about this to her aunties. A watchful presence often seemed to linger nearby, and occasionally the girl would glimpse a shadow that would melt away when she tried to gaze at it. She wasn't alarmed, and in fact found it a comfort to know something or someone was with her. The girl feared little, and even lynx and bears paid her little heed as she never bothered them and sometimes even left food.

She was so innocent and carefree and inquisitive that Maleficent couldn't help but feel a stab of envy. The 'little beastie' wandered far and wide, and so the fairy was never far behind. The girl had learned to move carefully and silently, and so did not disturb a young deer that had only been born the previous year. The young doe approached Aurora who stooped with her hand out and briefly touched her nose to the outstretched hand.

Diaval watched, not even hiding his obvious love and affection for the girl. It seems the Gifts the Pixies bestowed on her were true, in that all who came to know Aurora loved her. He saw her as a little sister, which is not so surprising. Crows in the wild often don't leave the nest that they were hatched in after they reach maturity, instead staying for a few years to help their parents with their younger siblings.

"I wonder," murmured Maleficent, who then with a wave of her hand and gathering of her magic put the girl in an enchanted (though temporary) sleep. She gestured with her staff, which had the girl floating off after them. Unfortunately, some suspicious soldiers of the King were nearby and needed to be taken care of. Maleficent turned Diaval into a fearsome black wolf, and followed that with a brute display of her power. She lifted the five men into the air and hurled them against one another, then against nearby trees. They wouldn't know or do anything for a good long while.

She then parted the enchanted thorns long enough to bring Aurora into the magical land of the Moors. She hid herself in some bushes nearby and woke her. The girl sat up and cast her gaze around in surprise and wonder. Tiny pond fairies greeted her and she smiled in wonder and joy. Other fair folk approached her to get a look at the strange blonde girl and she didn't recoil from any of them, not even the ne'reids that looked like glowing, floating butterfly/fish hybrids. Aurora hailed each one she spotted and smiled unabashedly at them all.

"This is like a dream. This is so delightful!" she gushed. She stood and walked away from the pond she woke up beside, and spotted a familiar shadow. She walked nearer and said, "I know you're there. Why don't you come out? Don't be afraid."

The girl wasn't as daft and goofy as she'd thought, Maleficent said to herself. "I'm not afraid."

"Then come out," the girl entreated.

"Then you'd be afraid."

The girl's smile faded, but she stood fast. "I'm not afraid," she insisted, and meant it. "I want to see you."

Night had fallen in the time it took to get Aurora to the Moors. Maleficent stepped into the glimmering moonlight. Her brightly colored eyes shone like a cat's in the dim light, and her high-cheekboned face was unnaturally pale, contrasted with her full, red lips. What caught Aurora's eyes though were the curved black horns which sprouted from the fairy's head. The fairy moved closer, staff in hand and clad in long black robes. "Are you not afraid?" she demanded.

"No," Aurora answered, then smiled. "I know you!"

"You know me?" Maleficent asked in disbelief.

"Yes, you're my fairy godmother!" she answered. Aurora had heard stories from her aunties and from the villagers about lucky people who were looked after and protected by fairy godmothers.

"What?" Maleficent muttered. This girl had to be an imbecile. How much of a dolt could you be to call the source of your impending demise your fairy godmother?

"I remember you," the girl said to Diaval when he landed close by. "Pretty bird!"

He stood up as a man, which finally did cause the girl to give a start. "I am Diaval," he greeted her. "I have watched over you since you were a baby." He kissed her hand.

She laughed. "I'm not afraid of anything in the forest because you are always with me. I have seen your shadow ever since I was a child. I thank you, fairy godmother, for showing me this. It is wonderful. Oh, I can't wait to-" Aurora babbled, but was stopped mid-sentence by Maleficent putting her back to sleep.

"Interesting," the fairy spoke to herself.

Diaval awoke that night to the sound of his mistress crying out. He opened his eyes and cawed, and finally spotted her sitting up in the thicket she had been sleeping. He flew to her shoulder and chirped inquisitively.

"It was only a dream," she assured him. "I dreamed of Gwion again, we were walking along some beautiful cliffs and we were talking and laughing. The dream changed and I saw Stefan, but he was older and thinner. He looked so haggard and he had grown a beard, but he was so stricken and hateful. He tore my wings from me and I screamed from the pain." She changed Diaval into a man to let him speak.

"All is fine, you're now awake," he soothed. "I can't imagine what that must feel like, losing your wings. I'm sorry," he put a hand on the shoulder he was just perched on moments ago.

Maleficent buried her face in his shoulder. "What am I doing? What is happening?" she sobbed. Unsure of what else to do, the man enfolded her in his arms to let her release the agony. "I feel like that I will eventually go to the great castle, and I will die there."

"No, that's not true," countered Diaval. "You don't know that."

"I have entwined us all in a destiny none of us can control," she sniffled, and clung to him. "What have I done?"

"There are things even you cannot predict, mistress. There is no knowing how this will play out. You wanted this, remember?"

"I did," she responded, this time more calmly. "Now, I am not so sure."

It wasn't many days before Maleficent allowed Aurora to visit her again, with the promise that she wouldn't alert her aunties, adding that she didn't want to upset them. The girl spent the days and weeks exploring the Moors and playing with the denizens there, under the indulgent eye of the lone fairy.

One day while her aunties were away at the market she went and called for Maleficent at the edge of the enormous thorns, the way her father used to decades before. The fairy appeared soon after to part the dangerous foliage to allow the girl entrance. "Fairy godmother, it's so good to see you!" the girl cried exuberantly. "I brought you and Diaval some muffins from the baker."

"Ooh, muffins!" said Diaval excitedly. He loved muffins whether he was man or bird, and he took a proffered muffin and devoured it in half a second.

"What kind are they?" asked Maleficent as she received a muffin.

"Blueberry," the girl answered.

"Thank you, child," the fairy spoke. She bit into the still-warm concoction and smiled. "This is very good."

"You should eat more, you're so thin," declared Aurora, but she didn't mean any insult. She had hugged the tall fairy before and she was all bird-bones inside all that voluminous fabric she wore which worried the girl.

"I'm fine," assured Maleficent. "Don't you worry about me." She seated herself on a flat rock to regard the girl. She had grown even in the short time she'd been coming to the Moors, and wore her yellow hair braided as the peasant girls did. Her dress was worn but always clean and pressed, probably no thanks to the hapless Pixies. Maleficent remembered her dream that had years ago, thinking to herself that the pretty girl she saw that seemed so important was Aurora. Perhaps this simple, cursed-with-constant-happiness girl was the key to everything.

That leaves the haunted king that appeared in her dream that same night, which she surmised was King Stefan. She knew he hated her and wished her dead-the soldiers, wizards and assassins he sent after her made that plain. She dealt with them easily, but Stefan? No, he would have something particularly nasty in store for her, she was sure.

Maleficent finished her muffin, then forced a smile at the girl. "I brought you a book. You've been learning to read, am I right?"

"Oh, yes!" the girl answered happily. She took the large, worn tome and cradled it. "It's amazing! Look at the pictures." She flipped through the book, finding the entry on the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. "You look like both of them, Godmother," she mused.

"I am both of them," she answered, unable to hide the pride in her tone.

"Then what are you called? Neither one or the other?"

"I found the word in that book. I am Fomor'ii. As far as I know, I am the only one."

The girl's eyes widened. "How very sad! I am sorry to make you think of such things."

"It is all right, Aurora. I have come to terms with it, though sometimes my old heart aches with the loneliness."

"We should go looking for more Fae," Aurora suggested.

"We?" laughed Maleficent. "You want to see the wide world, do you?"

"I'd love it!" she exclaimed. "If we found more Fomor'ii wouldn't that be the greatest?"

"I'm not sure everyone would think so. We are both Light and Dark, and we are not human."

"Well, they're wrong," sniffed the girl stubbornly. "You are my Fairy Godmother and you are good and generous and wonderful."

"Bless you, silly beastie," she chuckled, and took the girl into her thin arms. "It is you who carries the best things of all our kinds inside you." After a tight hug the girl jumped into the Pond to play with the Boglings.

Diaval sat beside his mistress and grabbed her slender hand. "The Gifts," he murmured softly.

"What?" she snapped.

"Remember? All who meet Aurora come to love her."

"Oh, shut up and eat those muffins."

Knotgrass, Flittle and Thistlewit returned to the cottage late that evening to find the whole house clean and all the blueberry muffins gone.

"Goodness gracious, child! You ate all those muffins?" demanded Knotgrass.

"Yes. I got hungry doing all this work," Aurora explained, attempting to look as innocent as possible. She had help from Diaval when she got back to get everything clean.

"Don't know where she's putting it all," Flittle remarked.

"She's a growing girl," Thistlewit suggested. "Though you really shouldn't eat so much late at night. It's bad for your humors."

"It's bad for MY humors!" snorted Knotgrass, who rolled her eyes and dropped the matter. She ambled upstairs, feeling very sick and tired of this big clumsy body she wore to fulfill their mission to keep the Princess safe.

The other two aunties kissed Aurora goodnight before retiring to the big bedroom upstairs. Aurora loved her aunties, even though they were not that great at childrearing, they did the best they could. It takes a big heart to take on the task of raising an orphan child, she thought. And besides, she had a fairy godmother, too! She was a lucky girl.

7

Maleficent tried to revoke the curse she'd put on the innocent girl one night not long after, but she wrought the spell all to well, it seems. She had decreed no force on Earth would break the spell, and she found it was so. Not even her own tremendous power could take back the curse she had created. She had learned of the Queen's demise years ago and knew that it was the curse at work. Dejected, she returned to her throne in the middle of the Pond in the Moors and found her lost headdress carefully placed there.

How? She demanded her subjects to tell her how Gwion had entered the Moors without her leave, and none of the Fair Folk had even seen him.

Balthazar stepped forward to admit that he had glimpsed the wily Solitary, but as he wasn't human and didn't seem to be doing any harm he let him pass.

"But how did he get past the thorns?" she wondered.

"I don't know, milady," he answered in the Treant speech. "He has strong magic, like you. I thought it would be good if you had more fairies like you to talk to."

"I will decide who I talk to and when I do so," she snapped at him.

The Treeman guard gripped his gigantic spear in frustration. "I did not mean to presume. I will not allow him to pass again, if that is your will."

"No...actually, I'm curious. If you see him again, don't hinder him."

Balthazar shook his oddly shaped head and moved his twelve feet tall frame along. He didn't understand women at all.

Maleficent picked up the headdress to look it over, and found a beautiful red jewel had been sewn onto the part that covers the forehead. A peace offering, perhaps? At least he was respecting her wishes and keeping his distance. For now, at any rate. Diaval swooped down to perch on the arm of her throne and cawed happily.

"I know you're mocking me, Diaval. I should change you into a ladybug and let the frogs have at you."

The crow squawked and fuzzed up his feathers in offense. He glared at her with such piercing disapproval that she eventually told him she was sorry for threatening him with being devoured by frogs. She made a point of not changing him into a human so he couldn't vent his annoyance.

The worst day of Maleficent's life came when Aurora learned of her true parentage and of the curse that had been wrought on her. The fairy admitted she was the one who'd cursed her which shattered the girl, and she looked on with tears in her green eyes as she fled. Aurora's sobs echoed throughout the forest. Maleficent was stricken, sure that this had to be worse even than the taking of her precious wings.

The girl ran away from the fairy and her aunties who were really Pixies and all the lies that she had ever been told. She took the plowhorse that belonged to the Pixies and departed, and rushed headlong to her fate.

Aurora floated in darkness, carried along like a piece of driftwood in a current. She occasionally heard voices around her, coming from some muffled, far-off place, but she was content to float, and feel nothing. This went on for an undetermined length of time; it could've been minutes, or weeks, or months. Suddenly Aurora was being pulled, a gentle tug at first but then something shoved her into consciousness. She opened her round blue eyes and saw someone she loved, moving sadly away from her, the narrow shoulders drooping in dejection. "Hello, Fairy Godmother," Aurora said.

"Hello, Beastie," Maleficent spoke, with tears that flowed freely down her angular face.

Aurora immediately knew that the curse had been broken; true love's kiss had freed her. It was not the love of Philip who she'd just met once, but the love of a mother to a daughter. Maleficent was the mother figure she had craved and she loved her despite her feelings of betrayal.

Aurora's father Stefan had not fared well, as the passing years left him more paranoid and full of hate. His anger and hatred led to his death and the reuniting of Maleficent with her wings, thanks to Aurora's help. The girl found the cabinet which housed the huge feathery pinions and set them free. As if they knew Maleficent was nearby, they flew to her.

She was complete again, she was whole. All the work and planning of the iron-studded trap Stefan laid for her came to nothing.

She threw down the wall of thorns and crowned Aurora Queen of the Moors and the human lands. The land of the Fair Folk grew happy, bright and vibrant once more. Maleficent let her hair hang loose, but she occasionally wore the headdress with the ruby between her horns when she was feeling bold.

The Fomor'ii fairy reveled in her ability to fly after having spent many years earthbound. She cherished the wind in her face and the rush of the landscape as she swooped close. She made peace with the Pixies and with humans, who stopped their encroaching upon the fair folk's territory.

Queen Aurora grew into her role with wisdom and grace, for she loved both the Moors and the Kingdom and was loved in return. She made a treaty of alliance with Prince Philip to take back to his father King John of the Westlands. He in turn made a promise to return soon to visit, which made the girl's heart flutter and Maleficent to smile at the young people.

Maleficent released Diaval from his oath of lifelong servitude and bestowed upon him the ability to shift forms from crow to man, but he refused to leave one who he had served for so long and had grown to love and respect.

The fairy was resting on Mist Hill one afternoon, standing quietly and looking down at the tranquil landscape stretching out as far as the eye can see, when Aurora came riding up on a white horse. Close behind her was the dark-skinned general Daron and a small escort, which followed her wherever she went now.

"Godmother," she called, and ran to her arms like the impetuous adolescent she was. "I wanted to talk to you."

"You could have summoned me to the palace-you are a queen now and shouldn't be running hither and thither," chided Maleficent gently.

"I wanted to tell you that you should go looking for Gwion and more of your people," the girl said. "Furthermore, I'm coming with you."

The fairy eyed the girl in disbelief, but she now noticed Aurora was dressed in riding pants, boots, and gloves. Her hair was braided tightly and she wore a beautiful blue cloak, and her horse was loaded down with saddlebags.

"Who would run the kingdom while you're away?" wondered Maleficent.

"The Lord Chancellor and the Pixies," she answered, and grinned.

Diaval swooped down and morphed into his human shape. "I'm coming too, I have to make sure you don't do anything terrible."

"So you both have the whole thing planned out, do you?"

The pair nodded while smiling goofily.

The Fomor'ii sighed then chuckled. "Very well then, we will go looking for my people."

"Which way, mistress?" Diaval said with mock dignity.

"North. We head north, where the Fae may have hidden themselves."


End file.
